As the sun mounted the slate clouds that sat in the eastern sky, life stirred in the world below. Waves of buildings swept along the ground, mostly unfinished. It was a haphazard city of girders and chains, with constructions that had halted in their prime. Quiet permeated all, as if the world was keeping its breath within its chest in fright of what it would taste upon inhalation. A dark figure made its way about the metal in aerobatic motions, jumping from pole to roof to shell. He was in search of battle, as he was a beast of such machinations. The hair of it trailed in its head’s wake like grey breeze. It was not grey, however, but black and white, mottled together; the speed at which the warrior traveled blurred the shades together into a slur. His pattern of black and white, repeated all over his visage, fitted into the city as if he was a regular occurrence, and he was.

The rest of the city sat in uncomfortable slumber. Magic was at play here, supporting various buildings, and making up most of some. Skeins of wire and metal coursed through the air to tie individual parts of the city together.

Timaeus came to a halt at the apex of a monstrous building. The behemoth of concrete and metal ruptured forth from the ground and soared into the sky, its shadow draped over the ground behind like a lordly cape. The air about him seemed to crawl through the folds of his robes to sit at the spire with him, hugging around his body. The world was lain out before him as a thorny carpet of steel, the sun’s light dancing off its surface.

Timaeus cast his eyes to the horizon, which was grey in the east. It seemed to him as if hell had spewed forth the sun as a massive sphere of fury, and noxious clouds of smoke had been released with it.

“Hmm. Little time I am given in the face of darkness.” Timaeus spoke broodingly, his eyes closed as if he were searching himself, trying to find some kind of stain within. He took a shallow breath, but released it in a long sigh.

He pushed off from the spire and hurtled downwards. The wind past his face felt like fingers clawing at his face, mouths biting his flesh. The time he fell for seemed undefined, but it was long.

Hours, perhaps days, later, Timaeus collided with the limb of a tree, the first in a series that built a dense forest across the city’s floor. The savage speed of the fall was nothing compared to the capturing abilities of the leafy carpet the sat across the ground. Timaeus landed into this covering as if he had just lain down on his bed. The leaves that followed him, spinning down to join those that had performed the act long ago seemed like the essence of autumn raining down in fiery acid.

Timaeus stood. His fingers flexed themselves. His eyes were lustful, longing for blood at his hand. He wanted to kill, to maim, to destroy. He felt this often; war was integrated into his psyche and battle was built into his blood. He turned to face one of the buildings at the road’s edge. The door gave way easily, crumbling beneath darkness. The Searcher strode in, and Searched.

He found a sleeping woman, maybe in her thirties. Her skin was pale, and her was like the autumn: fiery and blazing. She held her blankets up under her chin, and her breath was shallow. As Timaeus approached, her breath seemed more force, as if she was fighting Timaeus for breath. When he drew a finger across her skin, she trembled and quickened her breath once more. He could feel the tug of her blood, and it pulled him close to her. He brought his tongue across her face, and tasted her unconscious fear, her unknowing screams.

When his hand felt its way to her neck, Timaeus basked in the horror he inflicted upon her through nightmares. His fingers curled around her spine, and she woke.

“Good morning, my darling…” And before she could respond, Timaeus’ hand was alight with ethereal flames that tortured her face. The stench of her flesh smoldering filled his nose and pumped his magic, like a wind pump to a bellows. He took her outside by the neck, his sheer will sustaining her life.

The next few minutes were a-blur with crimson, like blood dancing through Timaeus’ mind. The death for him was orgasmic, and he reveled in the pain brought upon the citizen by his demonic hand.

When the episode had passed, he looked about. The major difference was that those leaves that had not been taken by autumn were now stained red, afire with his violence. The wall of the building she had been slumbering in was bloodied, but not painted completely. These visions did not appall Timaeus, but made him even more blood-thirsty.

The Demon took to the skies in search of more fear, as well as a battle.

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